


destiny knot

by lucid92



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions, アイカツ! アイドルカツドウ! | Aikatsu!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 23:52:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9210704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucid92/pseuds/lucid92
Summary: seira and kii bond over kii's love for pokemon. sometimes true love is just pressing the right buttons! in the epilogue, kii launches into an unnecessarily detailed explanation of a certain process. very educational!





	

There were three immovable constants in Kii’s life: the energizing beverage, Brain Thunder, her best friend, star idol and sweetheart, Seira Otoshiro, and the internationally renowned video game series, Pokemon. So a day was planned ahead of time, a special day in which all three constants of Kii’s life would run together like melted crayon into one beautiful, multi-colored mess, and when she would prove to Seira, once and for all, that Pokemon wasn’t just some game for kids, and that it was a serious pursuit, so would she please, please, please buy the game and play with her?  
  
“Think,” said Kii, planting a finger firmly on Seira’s temple. “Think, think, think! Concentrate, Seira. I don’t want you to do this half-heartedly. It’s like music, right? You have to find the perfect chord.”  
  
“But didn’t you say I’d end up getting all of them, anyway?” Seira hovered the 3DS stylus over the screen. “I’ll just pick whatever comes up. Maybe Charmander.”  
  
“I already told you this,” said Kii, moving an invisible box with her hands. “This is Pokemon Sun. There are no Charmanders. Not yet, at least.”  
  
“Sure, Kii,” said Seira. “Wait. Wait, is that a cat?”  
  
“Yes, that is,” said Kii. “That is Litten. And that is Popplio, who is very musically inclined. I knew ahead of time that you’d like either one. So choose.”  
  
“You want me to choose between music and cats?” said Seira, blinking a little dramatically. “I don’t think I’m properly prepared to make that choice. They’re both pretty cute. And who’s the third cutie?”  
  
“That’s Rowlet. It turns into something cool, but I know that you get tired of being cool, and Pokemon is supposed to be a private, emotional experience. I don’t want you to have to repeat an image in a video game that you already wear in real life.”  
  
Seira’s stylus fell on the little owl.  
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Kii. “Seira! I told you not to choose impulsively!”  
  
“Nope. I chose with a purpose. It’s weird, but cute, and it kinda grows on you the more you look at it. Like Kii.”  
  
“What are you saying all of a sudden?” said Kii, raining playful punches on the other girl. “Well? Does she have a name?”  
  
“I think I’ll name her… Momo.”  
  
***  
  
“Seira, are you still playing?” said Kii, bringing her own 3DS and pajama’d self back to the couch. “It’s been a few hours. How are you liking Alola?”  
  
“Hmm,” said Seira. “Meowth is so purple.”  
  
Kii peeked at her screen. “Eh? You’re still on Route 2?”  
  
“I’m taking my time like you said, Kii,” said Seira. “Momo is getting really strong. She’s really enjoying her Pokatsu, isn’t she? Just kidding.”  
  
“I see,” said Kii. “Well, I’ll be back in a bit. I’ll get us some Brain Thunder.”  
  
***  
  
“Yo, Kii!” Seira walked into the producing studio with a few bags of food that smelled like they were from her family’s restaurant.  
  
“Seira, don’t you have work?”  
  
“I do. But I wanted to get some lunch for us." Seira placed the bags on the table by Compy's monitor.  
  
"Thanks," said Kii, and peeked into one of the bags. "This smells really good."  
  
"There's something else,” said Seira, taking out her 3DS and switching on the game. “Something I wanted to give you. It’s a special Pokemon, one I'm sure you don't have yet. Come on. Let's trade.”  
  
Kii smiled at her. Surely Seira knew she had a complete Pokedex by now. There were very few things she was looking for in the game. But seeing her recent enthusiasm with it after a solid week of playing, any gift Seira had to offer was more than welcome. Kii pulled out her own system and switched to local trade. She put up one of her many perfect IV Persians that Seira had expressed wanting in the past.  
  
“Oh, she’s beautiful. Thank you so much, Kii.”  
  
“I’m just so glad you are enjoying the game,” said Kii, and looked down. Her heart almost dropped to her stomach.  
  
A shiny Keldeo.  
  
A shiny Keldeo! With just the nature she wanted. Like something out of a dream.  
  
“Do you like her? I named her Kii.”  
  
“How? How? How did you do this?”  
  
“Well, I just finished the game, right?” said Seira, gripping Kii’s arms to stop her from shaking. “So a few days ago I knew your birthday was coming up. And Christmas. And a bunch of other things. So I thought I’d get you an early gift, and I knew you liked unicorns and Pokemon, so I came up with this.”  
  
“But how did you get it?”  
  
“The Keldeo event, of course! I bought a copy of Pokemon X, which I’m loving, by the way, and soft reset the game during my breaks until she turned up. Easy.”  
  
“I don’t know what to say,” said Kii, tearing up a little. “I mean, you could’ve asked any one of your fans for a shiny Keldeo, and they would give one to you, no problem.”  
  
Seira frowned, and brought her hands down to Kii’s. “Then that would make the gift lose a lot of its intended meaning, right? And I don’t want to give you anything meaningless, Kii. So, you gotta tell me. Do you like your gift? Was it okay, okay, okay?”  
  
“Of course I do, you dork,” said Kii, crying, and gave her a kiss that was anything but meaningless.  
  
**Epilogue**  
  
“Years,” said Kii. “Years. Oh, sure, I’ve seen a few for trade. They were within reach. But I could never find the right nature that wasn’t immediately snapped up.”  
  
“And I did?” said Seira. “Funny. I didn’t even check for nature.”  
  
They were walking down a path outside of the Dream Academy dormitories, hand in hand. The weather was a bit colder now, with snow falling every other day, and Kii was appropriately snuggled into Seira’s side.  
  
“This is the perfect Keldeo,” said Kii. “You don’t even understand how incredible this is. All right, maybe you do a little, now that you’re a Pokemon Professor, like me. It’s fate. Fate that brought the right nature to my girlfriend.”  
  
“I can rock with whatever fate’s playing,” said Seira. “Fate, with its red string, brought me to you, for example. Don’t look at me like that. I’ll die. I’m just ecstatic that you like the gift. Totally over the wall. So la-la-la!”  
  
“Not like,” said Kii. “Love, love, love! I love the gift. And I love you.”  
  
“You,” said Seira, with as much emphasis as she thought humanly possible. “Momo is doing fine, by the way. Somewhat taller than before. Cooler than before. But still nerdy.”  
  
“Like me, right? I know, I know.”  
  
“That soft resetting was quite the chore, though. Gave my hands a workout.”  
  
“Oh no, not your precious hands,” said Kii, with a mixture of playful and real concern. “Your producer will patch them up nicely. With her magical kisses. Smooch!”  
  
“Eek, that tickles. Control your magic, Kii.” Seira sighed. “I’m just glad it didn’t take longer.”  
  
“Now for a lesson,” said Kii. “Just to save you some time with similar pursuits in the future. You know about the Masuda method, right?”  
  
“Sure I do,” said Seira. “That’s the method for breeding shiny Pokemon discovered by Smogon University. Named after Junichi Masuda, the director of Game Freak, it describes the increased chances of breeding shiny offspring between two Pokemon of different original languages.”  
  
“Aced it,” said Kii. “Now I’m going to describe to you a method that I have personally discovered and spread on the Internet, and it’s slowly and surely gaining traction. It involves Magikarp.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“It’s a Pokemon, silly. It evolves into Gyarados. You know? The one that you said looked like me after I had to eat curry for that variety show.”  
  
“God, yes. Hahaha.”  
  
“Hush, you. Now it’s like we were just talking about. Fate.” Kii pulled up her 3DS screen. “Now it turns out that eggs in the Sun and Moon daycare are predetermined in a way. Take Stunfisk, for example. This Pokemon. Don’t look so shocked, he can’t help how he looks! If I were to create 30 Stunfisk eggs with this foreign Ditto, and using a Shiny Charm, then my chances for a Shiny would be pretty high, right? But what if I were to tell you that I could find a shiny Stunfisk in a marginally faster window of time?”  
  
“I’d think that my precious hands would be pretty happy to hear that.”  
  
“Right. Now everything’s the same here. I’ve got my English language Ditto, my shiny charm, except now I am using a Magikarp in place of a Stunfisk. Why? Everything is predetermined. If I were to hatch 30 Stunfisk eggs in this save file, then those Stunfisk eggs would have the same stats, genders, IVs and, most importantly, shiny status, as the Magikarp eggs I would get if I were to reset and use the same save file.”  
  
“I don’t get it.”  
  
“It’s pretty simple, actually. It’s like labels in a factory. Here comes a Stunfisk down the conveyor belt, choo, choo, choo. The machine stamps a label on it. Nature, gender, secret abilities, you name it, all on the label. Now pretend we could reset a day in the factory. Everything is the same that day, except Magikarp are choo-chooing down the conveyor belt.”  
  
Seira hammered a fist into her hand. “Same labels, different Pokemon.”  
  
“Exactly! Whether intended or not, this quirk of the game opens up a whole new arena of work with shiny breeding. If your goal was a shiny Stunfisk, all you would have to do is save your game, put Magikarp in with Ditto, count out eggs and hatch them. If you don’t find a shiny in those eggs, just save and hatch some more. When you do find a shiny Magikarp, you reset the game without saving, put the Stunfisk in place of Magikarp, and boom. Shiny Stunfisk in the same egg your shiny Magikarp had been discovered in.”  
  
“Wacky,” said Seira. “So wait. Why Magikarp?”  
  
“Oh, right. Magikarp has the fastest hatching time of all Pokemon. That’s the time saving part!”  
  
“Poor Magikarp.”  
  
“Don’t feel sorry for the unhatched Magikarp, Seira. He’s doing us a great service. If anything, he should be worshipped, not pitied.”  
  
“Hold on,” said Seira, stopping her stride. “You said the gender was fixed. Does this method necessarily apply to genderless, or single gender Pokemon?”  
  
“Very perceptive, Miss Otoshiro,” said Kii. “You noticed that having a nonbinary variant in the mix might result in messing up the predetermined chain.”  
  
“It’s like you were saying when I was EV training Momo last week,” said Seira. “Pokemon have a lot of numbers attached to them, and if you play with one, you play with all of them.”  
  
“How right we are,” said Kii. “Genderless or single gender Pokemon would absolutely break the predetermined the chain. But you can bypass this by simply leaving an egg with the daycare lady.”  
  
“Uh. Can you elaborate?”  
  
“Pokemon have numbers attached! Genderless and single-gendered Pokemon skip the part in the factory line when they stamp a gender on you, and so lag behind the Magikarp line by one stamp. That’s why the Magikarp numbers don’t align. A line of Bounsweet can’t match up to the same line of Magikarp. But if you take away one Bounsweet in the line, the very first egg you get when switching in, then the two species align! Shiny chain, saved!”  
  
“That’s incredible that you figured all that out. But what about the Destiny Knot? Or the Everstone?”  
  
“Everstone works as always, and doesn’t disrupt the chain upon equipping to the desire Pokemon. Destiny Knot? Not, not, not okay. If you equip or unequip it anytime from any of your breeders, you disrupt the chain.”  
  
“What about if you don’t use a Ditto?”  
  
“Opting for a foreign Stunfisk instead of a foreign Ditto? You simply take one egg in the line, then pass the other one to the daycare lady, on and off. This is because of the numbers decided for the Pokeball inheritance, which Is decided at the end of a hatching. Think of it as a squiggly conveyor belt for the Stunfisk, and a straight conveyor belt for the Magikarp. One hiccups, the other one just moves along.”  
  
“Eh? This is all too much to remember all at once. How can I make the process simpler if I want to have the Pokemon with the perfect stats?”  
  
“Easy,” said Kii. “You get the foreign Ditto and the Pokemon you want a shiny of together. They both have to have the IVs you want your shiny to inherit. The non-Ditto must also have the nature that you want. You give Ditto the Destiny Knot, and the other Pokemon the Everstone. You get your Magikarp, preferably with the gender you want, to make things a lot simpler, number-wise. Its stats and what it holds are irrelevant. Then you do the method as I described. Save, count and hatch Magikarps until you strike gold. Then switch the Magikarp out. You must Masuda Method throughout, and it helps to have a Shiny Charm. Then you get your perfect Pokemon!”  
  
“What a brutal process for the Pokemon. But brilliant!” Seira clapped. “You’re so smart, Kii.”  
  
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now can we get something hot? Like hot chocolate!”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry for any other aikatsu series i've dropped.


End file.
